Art in the American Outback

There is a growing body of research and hands-on work in the area of art-making, neighborhood development and community engagement. In that vein, I wanted to share a story from Madison's 77 Square (by my journalistic compadre Lindsay Christians) about an innovative street art camp for teens.

The camp, run by Drew Garza and Scott Pauli (who have a local design business, Art & Sons) and co-conceptualized with Phil Busse, teaches kids cutting-edge skills in computer-aided graphic design, yet also uses old-fashioned paste-up techniques on the sides of local buildings.

At the same time the kids are building technical skills, they're expressing themselves and engaging with thorny social issues like racism and environmental damage--issues raised by the teens themselves, not foisted on them by adults. As one of the kids quoted says, "Don't be scared. Just show yourself, be yourself." To encourage people to seek out these works, an art "scavenger hunt" was organized.

The article, with accompanying video, is definitely worth a read. Hats off to Busse, Garza and Pauli for designing such an intriguing program for teens, and to the City of Madison for helping support it through a BLINK! grant (small grants for temporary art projects).

A friend in Ypsilanti, Mich., tipped me off to this post on a site called Model D by Sarah F. Cox. In it, Cox, a former New Yorker who earned an MFA in design criticism, details the reasons for her move from NYC to Detroit. A brief excerpt:

So it's onto the (erstwhile) Motor City and back to car life, where I'm
hoping cheaper real estate and a growing creative community will make
all the difference. While the cost of gas and carbon-footprint guilt
loom, I've been won over by the arts. In Detroit, you can afford to do
what you really want and will likely find a community of support rooting
for you to succeed instead.

While I'm sure some may dismiss Cox as naive, I like her hopeful tone and her desire to be part of something positive and growing in a beleaguered city. Cities are a lot like people: they need someone to believe in them, and I think optimistic, creative young people moving to Detroit can only be a good thing.

As a former Michigander, I wish Cox well, and I'll stay tuned to see how things develop for her. If you're so inclined, you can follow her on Twitter here.

Though I've
enjoyed his columns for years, I never knew much about Cunningham himself--though,
in that respect, I'm not much different from most in the fashion world.The film reveals Cunningham to be steadfastly
private and governed by a deep sense of personal morality.His egalitarian spirit and humility exist
alongside sheer, exuberant joy in what he does.

I don't
review films, but seeing this movie made me wish I had brought along my
notebook; there were so many memorable observations from Cunningham that I
wanted to remember.Among them [to
paraphrase]:"Lots of people have taste,
but few dare to be creative."That
fashion, rather than frivolity, is a kind of armor that makes our daily lives
bearable.And, perhaps most important,
"Those who seek beauty will find it."

That last
line, part of his remarks while accepting an honor from the French Ministry of Culture,
seemed like the ultimate summation of Cunningham's approach to life.Part of what appeals to me so much about
Cunningham is, quite simply, attention:his rapt attention to something that feeds his mind and his soul.Nowadays, that's rare, due partly to omnipresent
technology.

While at
first Richard Press' documentary seems to have little to do with the subject of
this blog--about the arts in smaller U.S. communities--it finally
occurred to me that it does.While every
bit a creature of New York
and a brilliant chronicler of urban life, Cunningham has an attitude that suits
him well wherever he goes.He doesn't
assume that something bigger and grander will necessarily be more
imaginative.Something spotted on the
street any given day might leave a more lasting impression than the latest
couture show.

It's this
kind of attitude that I think informs the work of artists, writers, actors and
others living in smaller cities and towns.Creativity and daring are not what someone else tells you they are; they're
where you make it or find it, and sometimes that's in the most unlikely places.

If you have
a chance to see this film, by all means, do, whether or not fashion interests
you.Cunningham's joy in his life's work
is something from which we can all draw inspiration.

Angus is one of a number of Wisconsin artists doing
intriguing work that bridges art, science and the natural world (others
include Martha Glowacki, whose long-running installation at the Milwaukee Art Museum, "Loca Miraculi / Rooms of
Wonder," is a must-see.)

Her unusual medium is beautiful, colorful, and walks a fine
line between mesmerizing and repellent (at least for many of us raised in
bug-phobic cultures).She re-uses her
specimens from one installation for the next.This was my favorite quote from our chat:"The bugs are very individual. I'll be
putting a weevil on the wall [during an installation], and I'll be like, 'I
remember you!'"

And here's an interview done with Angus by the Museum of Art and Design in New York in conjunction with the 2010 exhibition "Dead or Alive":

Certain
exhibitions have a way of staying with you for years, either through the
sheer strength of the work, its interaction with your own life or psyche, or
some confluence of the two.

A handful of shows have resonated with me so much that they have
literally changed the course of my life.One of those was in 1988 at the Milwaukee Art Museum.I no longer recall the exact title, but it
was a show of work by Milwaukee outsider artist
Eugene von Bruenchenhein (1910-1983) that had been organized by the John
Michael Kohler
Arts Center
in Sheboygan, Wis.It was deeply weird, visually provocative, and psychologically
indelible.

At the time, I was a teenager
from a small Michigan city who treasured sporadic
visits to the museum while visiting my grandparents in Milwaukee. As corny as it sounds, looking at this work helped me know that I wanted to look at, think about, and write about art in some way for the rest of my life, whether I did so professionally or informally.

It's hard
to believe that Milwaukee show was 23 years ago.Since that time, the standing of von Bruenchenhein (often
referred to simply as "EVB") and outsider art have come a long way.(In fact, as Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel art
critic Mary Louise Schumacher astutely points out in her 2010 piece on EVB's
changing fortunes, the term "outsider art" may no longer be the best moniker,
since it overemphasizes biography at the expense of formal qualities. "More than ever," wrote
Schumacher, "his work stands on its own.")A major exhibition of EVB's work remains on view at the American Folk
Art Museum in New York through Oct. 9, 2011.

Aside from
EVB, two more of the eight honorees were outsider artists (the late Fred Smith, whose
"Concrete Park" is in Phillips, Wis.) and Tom Every, better known as Dr.
Evermor, who still regales visitors at his fantastical, scrap-metal "Forevertron"
near Baraboo.

I don't
know what it is about Wisconsin,
but the legacy of outsider and self-taught artists runs deep here.That legacy continues to be a source of
delight and wonder to Wisconsin residents, and
it's one for which I, quite personally, will always be grateful. Von Bruenchenhein's art bore into my imagination at a time when I was most receptive to it, and it helped ignite a wider-ranging, lifelong interest in art and visual culture.

Dave Hickey at the Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University (Jan. 14, 2010)

I
was highly anticipating this lecture from Dave Hickey-- writer,
freelance art
and cultural critic, and MacArthur Fellowship winner among his many
claims to
fame. (As with any discussion of Warhol, the concept of fame itself
played an important part throughout the evening.) I had seen Dave
speak one time before, in conjunction with his Beau Monde biennial at
SITE Santa Fe,
so I was eager
to draw a comparison between the two talks.

But to be honest, I mostly
went
for the fun of just hanging out--for a short while and in a large crowd--in
Hickey's presence. This was, I knew, the best place to enjoy his
patented
irreverence for certain aspects of life, his deft ability to pontificate
on the
intellectual underpinnings of American culture and democracy, and also
where I
could hopefully catch a brief joyride in the critical musings which, in
the
title essay of his collection "Air Guitar," he describes as
"flurries of silent sympathetic gestures with nothing at their heart but
the memory of the music."

Not many "rock
star" art critics swing through the Raleigh-Durham area, so when it
happens, ya
gotta go. As a participant in the endeavor of criticism
myself, I must admit a deep regard for Dave's writing, his cultural
essays and "Art Issues" pieces in particular, for their accessibility,
range and, like them or not, his compelling critiques.

I've had my home state of Michigan on the brain quite a lot lately -- and it's not just because, as I sit nearly snow-bound in Madison, Wis., I'm wearing the same U of M sweatshirt I've had since 1987. While the economy is dreadful across the U.S., Michigan got hit earlier and harder by this recession.

My brother, who lives in Ann Arbor (site of my alma mater), sent me a link to a PBS NewsHour segment with Ray Suarez on that city. Suarez investigates what has made Ann Arbor more recession-proof than the rest of the state (though, as Ann Arbor's mayor points out, the recession can't be kept at bay indefinitely).

Not surprisingly, it's investment in education and technology--and being a place that people actually want to relocate to--that has helped Ann Arbor. Suarez doesn't really delve into the cultural scene (the closest he gets is foodie paradise Zingerman's), but any A2 resident knows that a steady diet of concerts, films, exhibitions, etc. is part of the town's appeal. You can live in a city of manageable size and still have plenty to do. In my college days, I went to poetry readings, saw The Replacements and Billy Bragg, attended my first opera and saw performance artist Karen Finley (whose "We Keep Our Victims Ready" I still remember as ludicrous, for what it's worth).

Other good stuff in Michigan includes the "Kalamazoo Promise," a program funded by anonymous, private donors that offers paid college tuition to students who graduate from Kalamazoo public schools. The benefit can be used at any of Michigan's state colleges and universities.

I don't have any answers for Michigan; I haven't lived there for 17 years, although I occasionally think about moving back. But I'm glad there are smart people thinking about Michigan's future and ways to make it brighter.

At long last, Madison, Wis., is poised to get a new central library branch. Although the current building dates only to 1965, it's a pretty bleak, worn space. I'm glad to see the city move ahead with this, especially in a tough economy.

But there's one aspect of the planning that's uncertain and quite troubling. A mural by the regionalist Aaron Bohrod, a former WPA artist whose work was also featured in the pages of Life, Time and Look magazines, is in danger. It's unclear if and how it will be preserved when the existing library is demolished.

For details, see Jay Rath's Nov. 13 article in Isthmus, "Will the Aaron Bohrod mural at the downtown Madison library survive?" As Jay notes, a John Steuart Curry work elsewhere in town (on the UW campus) is being preserved amid construction. Curry's gig as artist-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (in the College of Agriculture, no less) was the first time any university had set up such an arrangement.

It would be a great shame if, as Madison moves ahead with one worthy cultural goal, it lets another one--preserving our heritage--fall by the wayside.

Update added Dec. 2:

The Wisconsin State Journal reported last week that the city has hired a conservator to study ways the mural might be preserved. For details, see Dean Mosiman's article from Nov. 26.

Who couldn't use a little good news these days?With that in mind, here's a smattering of
positive arts news from Wisconsin,
albeit an incomplete one.Feel free to share your own good news in
the comments area below.

The
Milwaukee Ballet recently received a $1 million gift from the Dohmen
Family Foundation, and its school has become fully accredited by the
National Association of Schools of Dance.

Spring
Green's American Players Theatre, a classical repertory company, opened
its second stage this year.The
200-seat, indoor Touchstone Theatre now complements APT's main stage, a
1,148-seat outdoor amphitheater.Ticket income for the 2009 season was up 1% over the previous year,
despite a smaller patron base of just over 101,000 attendees.Some Touchstone shows were so successful
(like Jim DeVita's one-man show, an adaptation of Ian McKellen's Acting Shakespeare) that extra
performances were added.

The
Wisconsin Book Festival, which took place in Madison Oct. 7 to 11, was once again a
splendid event.Presenting authors
ranged from Wisconsin residents with
national profiles (Jane Hamilton, Lorrie Moore) to comix legends Harvey
Pekar and Lynda Barry to thinkers like Wendell Berry.Events are typically packed by grateful
audiences--all events are offered to the public free of charge by our state
humanities council.

While the
Madison Repertory Theatre folded earlier this year--very sadly, in the midst of
its fortieth anniversary season--new professional companies are
starting up in an attempt to fill the void.(While Madison has dozens of community theater
companies, the Rep's closing left a hole in the professional sphere.)One I'm excited about is Forward Theater
Company, which will stage the first production of Christopher Durang's Why
Torture is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them outside of New York.As Jennifer Uphoff Gray, Forward's
artistic director, told me in a story for Isthmus, "We reached out to Chris Durang directly. He
actually responded the next day and was really supportive. He said, 'Oh, I
had heard about the [closing of the] Rep,' and he was really upset about
it."We need timely, provocative,
professional theater here, and I'm glad there are people willing to fill
that need.

He was affable, humorous and generally seemed like an all around great guy. Not exactly the typical description you might expect to hear of an artist's lecture in a formal academic setting like a university museum. But then again I'm talking about Fred Wilson, an artist who thrives on the unexpected, and whose lecture I attended this evening at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. I believe it is no small part of Wilson's success as an artist that he is a likable and engaging character. This good-naturedness allows him easier access to a rather privileged world he loves to tinker with, the inner workings of museum culture, in order to produce work that reframes, rethinks and challenges the status quo.

Wilson's work explores curatorial practice itself and often relies solely on existing artworks in museum collections as subject matter which he rearranges and displays in unconventional and compelling ways. Working in this manner allows him to produce startling exhibitions which provoke and confound our expectations of museums, their role as cultural arbiters, and their interpretation and presentation of artworks themselves. This working method has in fact become Wilson's main methodology especially since his exhibition "Mining the Museum" at the Maryland Historical Society in 1992 - a breakthrough event he concedes changed his life forevermore afterwards. After this landmark show, recontextualizing works of art (and in turn our interpretations of them) through bold curatorial juxtaposition became Wilson's signature. Just one look at the well known image from "Mining' of Wilson's display of slave shackles and elaborate silver tea goblets together in the same display case is really all you need to start reconsidering the notions of historical accuracy, authenticity, and truth. History is written by the winners as they say.

In the years since "Mining the Museum" Wilson has gone on to produce other provocative displays in museum and galleries worldwide. Representing the U.S. in the 2003 Venice Biennale afforded an opportunity for international cultural exploration and Wilson fittingly explored how the Moorish culture and Africans exerted and continues to play such a large part in the cultural life of Venice. His large ebony chandelier entitled "Speak of Me as I Am" became a metaphorical exploration of Africans' impact on the culture of this particular city through one of their rich traditions- glassblowing. His large chandelier was rich in form and seductive in its understatement of its medium.

Wilson spoke of how he loves the idea of bringing two differing things together to produce a third thing - namely some unexpected concept or rethinking of the work itself - and this notion is one that continues to drive much of his artistic production. His work reflects his own perspective of course so his reworkings of museum collections still provide a highly personal take on history and how it's been told- a fact the artist readily acknowledges. Yet he does it with such gripping force that it has the effect of stopping you in your tracks.

The fundamental core of Fred Wilson's art is the idea that historical accuracy and representation are not all they are cracked up to be. There's more than one way to organize a show he tells us. And in that telling, Wilson's art explores not only how strongly museums impact and shape our cultural view but more importantly how we consider and understand ourselves.

Fred Wilson, "Mining the Museum" Maryland Historical Society, 1992

Fred Wilson, "Speak of Me as I Am" from the Venice Biennale, 2003courtesy PBS, Art:21 and PaceWildenstein, New York